1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a personal video recorder and a method of operating the personal video recorder. More particularly, the invention relates to a personal video recorder and a method that facilitates selecting programs from a multitude of broadcast programs.
2. Description of the Related Art
A personal video recorder, hereinafter referred to as PVR, like a conventional video cassette recorder (VCR), is coupled to a monitor or a television set in a viewer's home and receives broadcast signals via a coaxial cable, a satellite dish or an antenna for terrestrial radio frequency (RF) signals. In order to record a particular program, the viewer must “program” the video recorder so that the video recorder starts and stops recording the program at a predetermined day and time. A PVR includes a hard disk drive with a storage capacity of between 20 GB and 60 GB that allows recording of up to 80 hours of television programming.
Broadcast systems, such as “cable television” (CaTV) or “satellite television,” provide a multitude of TV channels, each having a multitude of programs during a typical day. The TV channels are listed in a program guide that gets larger as more TV channels are added. To alleviate this problem, cable television and satellite television systems provide electronic program guides which assist a viewer to select a program the viewer wants to record or wants to watch as “live TV.”
The conventional system enables the viewer to receive the multitude of programs from which the user can select preferred programs, for example, for watching as “live” TV or for recording. Although the user may use program guides in paper or electronic format, or may “surf” through the programs on a daily basis, the number of program channels, potentially hundreds of broadcast channels, make a program selection tedious and very time consuming, in particular on a daily basis. There is therefore a need to improve upon the prior art technique for presenting broadcast programs to a user so that the user's selection of preferred programs is facilitated.